The subject matter described herein relates to crisis management, and in particular, information proliferation to and from personnel and other individuals associated with an enterprise.
Over the past decade, occurrences of both man-made and natural disasters (e.g. nuclear incidents, shootings, earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, and more) have resulted in significant loss of life, injuries and damaged property. Local, regional and national first responders as well as emergency management officials have been challenged to respond quickly and effectively, while communicating with multiple organizations, government agencies, emergency management personnel and individuals in the affected areas. This challenge has been compounded by the difficulty inherent in synchronizing disparate and incompatible communications and emergency management systems, thus causing significant delays in crisis management and response.
It was through these disasters and response experiences that multiple needs were identified. Among these needs are a need for rich and rapid crisis communications tools, a need to develop a common understanding of a crisis situation using various data sources (including the general populace), a need for dissemination of relevant actionable information and instructions to the impacted personnel in real time, and a need for large scale tracking of personnel status and location throughout a crisis.
As these needs emerged, so did advancements in technology. With new communications technologies and the ubiquitous, omnipresent Internet Protocol (“IP”) infrastructure, Emergency Mass Notification System (EMNS) providers now provide single button, unified alerting to facility-based devices (e.g., fire alarms, public address systems, Giant Voice, etc.) and personal devices (e.g., via phone calls, text messaging, email, computer pop-ups, etc.). Current EMNS systems use a variety of channels and formats for outbound communications (from an operations center) to affected personnel, as well as collecting and tracking solicited responses.
While emergency notification is focused on outbound communication, the lessons learned from disasters point to the need for collecting inbound reports (from crisis locations and their vicinities) as well. For example, reporting a shooting in a school, a flooded area, a wild fire, or a terrorist activity. The recent public service campaign of “See Something, Say Something” from the US Dept. of Homeland Security, and “Every Soldier is a sensor” initiative within the US Dept. of Defense are examples of the philosophy that collecting, analyzing and acting upon inbound information is essential for effective crisis situation handling.
Until recently, 911 communications, the primary source for such inbound information, was inadequate for capturing rich content. The scope of 911 communications was extended to adopt newer technologies via the Next Generation 911 initiative (NG911). Implementation of NG911 now enables communication flow via the IP network, which also enables newer and more advanced capabilities that support rich communication from the public to the Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs).